


hurt me for tonight

by Hyacinthium



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Bloodplay, Burnplay, Consensual Non-Consent, Creepy, Degradation, Edgeplay, Heavy Angst, Heavy BDSM, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Psychological Horror, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Roleplay, Sex Tapes, Suicidal Thoughts, Terminal Illnesses, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-06-15 11:49:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15412260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyacinthium/pseuds/Hyacinthium
Summary: Shuichi goes to his old apartment and plans on selling everything in there. He's prepared to find some sick shit. Specially ordered nude figures of people who are dead in real life. Gross hentai. Nasty doujinshi. He wishes that he had never lied to himself about being ready to go there.Shuichi goes to his old apartment and then his heart dies.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Read the notes. Even if you think you will be fine with this, read the notes. Consent is important to me in a very personal way. If you are reading this fic, then you are agreeing that you are a consenting adult, but you are likely to not actually understand what you are getting into let alone be an adult. So because I like informed consent I must ask that each person not only stare very long at the tags, but also read my warnings whether they feel comfortable or not. And then think more on it. I cried while writing this and stayed up three hours past my bed time thinking up these notes and tags. It's not happy.
> 
> I will pull this out of Anonymous in a few days. I'm sure that many people will be able to guess, lol.

After three month of surviving Dangan Ronpa, Shuichi finally gets around to the topic of his old apartment. 

His landlord and he have worked out that Shuichi needs time before going back there, and the sweet old lady decided to give him four months to settle things. Genuinely kind of her. The detective can't even remember her in the slightest and she willingly tells him about all the sellable items in the place, forfeiting her ability to just claim it all for herself. 

Maki and Himiko talk about it with him, and five weeks later they drive Shuichi down there. He sees them off after tea with his former landlord. 

It'll take days to sort through everything and he still wants to do it alone. 

Shuichi goes into his old and decaying apartment with the intention of stripping it for cash, and finds a box of old movie tapes and pictures half hidden in floorboards. They’re all meticulously organized and labeled. He just wants to bundle up his disgusting Dangan Ronpa merchandise and sell it all low prices, all at once, in a spiteful attempt to fuck with the collector community or something. Shuichi is well aware of how much money he would still get from those limited edition Kirigiri panties. He’s also well aware that his past self was likely mental and extremely sick.

That should be a big reason to just ignore the tapes. But he sees the pictures and they frighten him to his core. 

Shuichi watches the tapes. 

At first he can only recognize himself doing things that horrify him only slightly. Like talking about foreboding things while capturing some chain filled dungeon like area on camera. Then he starts to go down the timeline of the tapes. Videos and slideshows full of some poor person getting anything from roughly fucked to beaten while naked. Forced to beg for abuse. Cut up and slapped like reusable trash while squirming, with Shuichi’s voice mocking him and calling him a slut for pain. Licking up his own semen from a dirty floor. 

Making him beg to get burnt.

The victim, because that’s the only thing that Shuichi can consider right now, he barely even looks the same age as Shuichi would have been. The boy is just so small and for the first handful of tapes…

Shuichi can see the boy’s ribs perfectly.

He eventually realizes that person his pregame self is doing horrible things to is Ouma.

It’s an abrupt realization that the boy, who he can't help but think should really run away among other things, is Ouma Kokichi. The person at the start just has so little in common with the Supreme Leader. Short and trim cut black hair, thick glasses, he changed a lot throughout the...

The evidence.

Shuichi’s brain is filling his mind with so many chemicals that it takes maybe five hours for him to realize; Ouma might not have been able to even leave that dank room, let alone run, or call the cops. He wouldn't have. 

The biggest thing that Shuichi is left wondering about is the time frame. 

Deep and ugly rawness around the boy's wrists and ankles is suggesting… 

Shuichi shoves the box away and shuts off his TV. He just watched a literal timeline of his disgusting previous self doing fucking horrible things to Ouma. But it wasn't Ouma and it wasn't him. It can’t have really been Shuichi as he is now in any respect. 

He can’t have possibly been like that. That bad. Shuichi can’t even bring himself to think the words.

Shuichi can't sleep that night either, too tired to ride back to the hotel nearby, and too awake to not see each scene or picture of that sickly looking Ouma, of Kokichi, tied up and suffering to the point of thin blood trickles running down his limp body.

A vlog of Shuichi leaving the house to go shopping for food, coming back and cooking. Opening up his closest and slowly untying a so much smaller than healthy teen that is crying and shaking. Like it's normal.

But it's gross and Shuichi feels grosser. All he has to go on is tapes, anemic journals, and pictures.

He's scared because he has no context.

He's scared because no matter how much he asks, no one will let him see Kokichi's audition tape. Hates how with each video, Kokichi starts looking more and more like the him from in the game.

So Shuichi is wondering. Why didn't that him mention Kokichi in his audition? Why did Kokichi change so much in just a year? Was it a possibly good thing and Shuichi just doesn’t understand this… stuff? He barely even knows that this could possibly be BDSM. Was this relationship a good thing, one that Shuichi just can't understand anymore, or was it as horrible as Shuichi fears it must have been?

Did he take this strange and vulnerable Kokichi in order to keep him as a toy for abuse? Did Kokichi get forced to join the killing game as some last ditch escape or because his fucking rapist thought it sounded fun to finally murder his literal punching bag?

How can Shuichi possibly feel like he has the right to be scared while he watches Kokichi scream in agony? 

Eventually, Shuichi bites the bullet and looks it all up. Too many silent panic attacks from forcing himself to witness more, too much self punishment for things he can't remember, too much puking into a bucket for Shuichi to stand. He has to know. 

He spends hours researching the basics while chugging coffee. Until the sun rises and he recognizes a lot of it from the videos.

Light researching maybe changes his verdict a bit. Then he reads more and more as he makes accounts on forums and blogging sites, begging for help. Someone turns him towards an old account that turns out to be his. And thus to Kokichi's own. 

They were living together for few months before starting their ‘play’. Apparently. 

His previous self was a fucking idiot and Shuichi still finds it all disturbing, but he wasn't actually a beast in human skin. That Shuichi can tell. He has to shakily edit the tapes and send them to someone, but Shuichi back then was- he wasn’t...

Everything is so much worse as it is better while Shuichi continues to learn about BDSM.

Because now Shuichi is stuck in this memory haunted apartment for the fifth night and has to live with knowing. Shuichi knows that he wasn’t a rapist now, just a stupid horny adult-teen with extreme fetishes, but he is still so disturbed. Now, he can't help but notice the signs of long term cohabitation. Everywhere. Everywhere, where he has fucked Kokichi and lived with him on their mutual but wrong kind of love. Only there are plenty of people in that thread telling Shuichi that there is nothing wrong with him. He just can't believe them. 

Each place is a place where he has had sex with the person who became Ouma Kokichi.

It is all entirely made of hurt and pain. Shuichi hates it. He hates it because they obviously had some sort of life outside of the freaky sex, outside of Dangan Ronpa, and now Shuichi is stuck in a graveyard. He still doesn't know why they joined Dangan Ronpa. Why they got up one day and left their handmade cat mugs behind along with their collection of cacti and silly slippers.

Doesn't understand why they decided to join a ‘game’ where one of them died.

Shuichi is stuck in an apartment that used to be a home, maybe, knowing that the last thing he really said to Kokichi was 'go die'.

Morbid fascination is a slow and insidious killer.

Shuichi starts up the TV and tries to finish up the tapes on instinct. He stormed the place and found even more last night. He hopes. He doesn’t know what he wants.

Kokichi's now chin length hair is being dyed.

That's all this tape consists of, even ten minutes in. No freaky sex that makes Shuichi feel guilty or ashamed.

It's just two young men fresh out of boyhood, laughing innocently in the bathroom of their mediocre apartment full of probably meaningful nicknacks.

His eyes are glued to the screen, and somehow this innocent domestic scene is worse than seeing some mockery of himself take a riding crop to Kokichi's bleeding back. Shuichi had been thinking his old self locked up Kokichi and gave him Stockholm Syndrome. In the face of this casual and loving horror, he might even prefer to go back to thinking that.

Shuichi turns off the TV and repacks it all up. He has half a mind to throw them all away.

He doesn't want to think about it anymore. The sheer idea that there might be more hidden around, sexless and sweet, just waiting to further humanize that death obsessed freak from his audition-

Shuichi can't really handle that right now.

He'd rather have never looked up the clarification that makes it easy to breathe again.

The alternative, the most likely truth that Shuichi is forcing himself to swallow, is that he and Kokichi were in a particularly kinkily messed up but otherwise loving relationship. And then they joined Dangan Ronpa. Instead of just living their strange but apparently RACK lives. Risk Aware Consensual Kink. For when the other and saner acronym isn't enough, Shuichi thinks at his cold mug full of coffee. 

Kokichi is dead the exact way that his lover said he'd be.

Alone.

Alone because, when Shuichi forces himself to admit it, he has no real way of knowing what happened in that hanger. Either way, Kokichi must have felt alone at the very least. 

Kokichi died alone and Shuichi is 99% absolutely certain that it's all his fault. 

Posthumous finding of sex tapes that make Shuichi scared to the point throwing up, because he's been rewritten no not know what BDSM looks like in the slightest, and then depressed as fuck despite finding out that he’s not a monster pretending to be a person. Assume the worst of yourself and then learn that you're wrong, then figure out that reality being good is not actually great for your emotional state anyway. The fake detective knows that all he can do is move forward.

Because he still can't find out why.

Maybe he'll end up watching and finding more tapes that explain their relationship and contexts there. For now he's simply staring at his ceiling and wondering why he can't let himself cry.

Shuichi goes to the Dangan Ronpa headquarters again after picking himself up, with help from Maki kicking him. Literally. Only very lightly though. 

A disgruntled employee almost kicks him out. Except their coworker is so done with everything, and Dangan Ronpa is closing shop anyways. 

"For the love of God, Kanae, it's over. The kid is dead to boot. Who gives a fuck about patient privacy when the kid died on live TV?”

Shuichi gets a huge stack of paperwork, and files and binders. His chest is tight and his ears are burning. The dispassionate gazes of both those people fill him with an exaughsted mix of determination and resignation. 

The main folders are way thicker than his single one was. A conference room soon gets claimed and everyone studiously ignores it. 

Shuichi makes it a half an hour in before he stops reading. Until he can’t bear read anymore.

Kokichi had already been dying. Not like Kaito's implanted disease either. Legitimately dying of something incurable in a world of flashback lights. Having his audition accepted had secured life saving treatment. 

No wonder Kokichi started looking healthier. 

Shuichi had thought he was watching Kokichi either get molded into someone else’s toy, or more recently become stronger over the course of a long year, in a relationship.

No, he’s just been watching Kokichi go through a violently sexual bucket list in his last year of being alive. He has been watching videos that have never been intended for him to see. Maybe not even for the other him to see either.

Shuichi goes back to the apartment and scavenges for more.

More anything.

He still has missing pieces and he just has to know to know why just-

("So you'll be there with me? You'll stay the whole time?"

"Of course! If even just one of us wins then you'll be able to get permanent treatments forever, there's no way I wouldn't jump at this deal."

"And you promise you won't... leave me alone?"

"I swear."

"Then, I'll do it. I'll join Dangan Ronpa with you.")

Shuichi shuts off the tape. Kokichi’s meek smile itches the inside of his pounding skull. A light flush of pink on deathly pale skin. A cut finger and a knife. Bandages. 

Memories of blood and cum leaking onto dull brown carpet. 

"Hey. I won after all. I-"

Days pass before Shuichi so much as answers phone calls.

Just one gets answered and Shuichi makes Maki promise not to call for a few days. 

He finds a video marked 'For when you feel sad' and little box labeled 'How I want you to remember me' and it's more of those softly candid shots and ticket stubs to all kinds of places. Shuichi puts the video in first. The box looks to have shop receipts and cards with ugly handwriting in them, and small doodles of chibi Kokichis riding panta bottles like horses on fancy cloth napkins. There is a journal made with obvious care and scrapbooking skills. 

A teddy bear with a ribbon on it. Shuichi blocks out the type from his mind. 

He can’t make himself touch the box more than that. None of this belongs to him. 

Shuichi is a voyeur. 

The video is a soft and sweet confession from Kokichi about how thankful he is that Shuichi stayed as long as he did. Just ending in soft vanilla sex. It's all just shots of Kokichi looking so happily embarrassed.

An idea of leaving behind some kind of proof, the proof that Kokichi was there and loved him, that Kokichi wants to leave happy memories behind, it explains the often shoddy editing that Shuichi was too scared to see at first. Shuichi watching a video and then remembering how he fucked up too badly would ruin any kind of video memories. 

Kokichi was the one who left the tapes, Shuichi realizes. 

Shuichi hates how attracted he is to this Kokichi, who still hides his now boyishly rounded face in his hands and giggles like a lovesick kid whenever Shuichi says something nice, despite all the sexual brutality they enjoyed. Despite Kokichi doing this to him and having had Shuichi do things that make his skin crawl with self loathing even now. Despite.

Kokichi must have thought that Shuichi would get his memories back. But none of the survivors wanted them.

Shuichi hadn’t wanted to remember a damn thing.

The memories are deleted now.

Memories that would have made these tapes into something romantic or even pure, that would make this dying Kokichi's intended treasure hunt into a heartbreakingly bitter but sweet farewell. Shuichi can imagine Kokichi grinning shyly after they come home from the game. He can hear that still oddly soft voice admitting to leaving behind their tapes as mementos for Shuichi, to do with as he wishes. 

Almost at the end of the video, as Kokichi is about to climax, he actually says that he loves Shuichi through his moans. The look on both of their faces is… 

There were times Shuichi got aroused by the BDSM videos, yet his disgust always killed it. 

There's nothing holding Shuichi back from becoming erect right now. Not even reminding himself that Kokichi is dead. Not even Kokichi being dead because of Shuichi’s complete and utter failure.

He's watching himself fuck Kokichi, so tenderly. Making love to a Kokichi who is, compared to the shell of a person from the first tapes, glowing and so very alive.

They were in love.

Shuichi wishes he could actually apologize for breaking his promises, but instead he has a hand around himself, and wishes that he could take it all back. Tell Kokichi not to join Dangan Ronpa. Tell himself to stop being stupid and take Kokichi's hand.

He can't make it to the end of the video before he gives up and starts crying like a lost child. 

That Kokichi could have died in barely any pain, with his Shuichi next to him. Instead Shuichi, this self righteous and cowardly Shuichi let him-

He doesn’t even know where Kokichi is buried. If he's buried. 

Shuichi wants to die. They were in love and living together and Shuichi wishes it had been him under the hydraulic press more than ever. 

Later, he searches the rest of the apartment and finds a single DVD slipped between the seat cushion of an antique armchair next to a bookcase. It's small and has a laughing Kokichi's face on it. Then Shuichi flips it and sees a doodle of past Shuichi and Kokichi cuddling on it. He's been using the wiped clean desktop this whole time, mostly to restlessly find prices and absolutely to find out exactly what he'd done. Now the detective gets to watch one last video. 

Opening up the file on the discussion reveals multiples, though. 

(The short haired Kokichi from the start of the tapes is shaking, panting and staring up at the ceiling while Shuichi gently swaddles him with a blanket. A cup of warm milk is being held by his boney hands. 

“Do more,” mutters Kokichi's specter. 

A sigh that's shaky in its own way and, “I won't do that right now. I can't do more, because that's what the finished scene was, and you're already dropping from subspace.”

Kokichi glares over at where Shuichi is. The boy bursts into tears before he can even speak.

“You a-agreed to-”

“We agreed to a lot of things and learned a lot more. So now I'm going to take care of you because you deserve it.”

The scene changes before Kokichi finishes sobbing out incoherent apologies.) 

Bloopers. Aftercare. Practice. 

(“Red, red, fuck I-” Shuichi gasps out, cigarette butt trailing smoke maybe five inches above the pale skin of Kokichi's upper arm. “I'm sorry, ‘kichi, I thought I'd be able to do this too!”

Purple eyes snap into awareness. Kokichi starts gaping as his strapped down arms stop struggling from shock. 

“I can't do this, I tried it on myself and it was fine but I can't do this after all! I'm so sorry-”) 

Safewording, from Shuichi himself of all people. ‘Don't make me burn you’ and Shuichi is sobbing yet again. 

(Shuichi is painting lewd art and writing degrading words on Kokichi's body with a calligraphy brush. The patient boy stays mostly still and smiles as tally marks get drawn on his tummy. 

The pale hand holding the brush slips.

"Fuck me, again? Seriously?" 

Kokichi giggles and takes the brush, saying that it's his turn. The scene ends. But a glimpse of Shuichi's inky dick covered face still gets seen.)

Each edited out and carefully deleted moment of consent and love. All the things that Shuichi didn't get to see, hated himself for seemingly not doing, every instance of everything Shuichi desperately needed to confirm. Hidden in the most obvious comfort spot. 

("W-wait what is it?" comes Shuichi's panicked voice, immediately stopping after Kokichi yelps ‘panta’. 

Kokichi whimpers, "Something is crawling on my back. "

Shuichi then jumps over into the main focus of the camera, and start making the most displeased and freaked out face. His eyes are obviously watching a living thing move. 

"Master- Shuichi, what is it?"

"Nothing! It's nothing. I just need to get a tissue…” 

Kokichi eeks and that scene ends.) 

Shuichi stares at a ceiling covered in stains, and wonders if all the post play scars on Kokichi's body made him feel loved. He wonders of this apartment and the sheer heartache it inflicts on him can ever start to fade. If the him from before has been locked up in Shuichi's head. Screaming. Crying.

Maybe most of all the tears belong to that original Shuichi. Held up behind a not so solid wall of actor skills, used to wow and manipulate the people judging Shuichi's audition. 

Shuichi calls Maki and Himiko to come get him. They wordlessly help him gather up each box full of memories and make two trips between apartments. The merchandise is trashed and kept behind. 

They don't ask. 

A week later, Shuichi gets a call from a hospital. He's listed as an emergency contact and on list to call in case of complications. For a patient otherwise being taken off of life support later that day. He has power over whether that happens or not. 

There had been paperwork for experimental treatments, but they never got signed.

Should have fucking complied with team Dangan Ronpa instead of saying fuck you to the man, a tiny snidely Kokichi-like voice hisses.

And by now, there isn't a team Dangan Ronpa left.

Shuichi will get to live the rest of his life with the sight of Kokichi quietly dying fried into his retinas.

It’s what the detective deserves, he knows.

He angrily calls the little office that is the remainder team Dangan Ronpa. Shuichi learns that instead of actually dying, everyone gets put into witness protection and left to live their life as their pregame self. That's how Shuichi's brain is comprehending it. Virtual Reality.

They don't automatically get their prizes like the survivors do. Just some semblance of their Talent.

So, if someone had decided to make their prize concern a losing participant, that winner also has to sign off one last time. Which Shuichi didn't know anything about until now. 

He's pretty sure that he knows why.

Shirogane is there in the room before Shuichi can even shows up, after all.

"It's only a fair exchange, really. You took and ruined the thing that I loved the most," Shirogane says. But then she smiles.

"Well, I suppose ‘you've’ never actually loved either him."

"Get out."

She does, and it doesn't make Shuichi feel better.

Kokichi… He looks so tired, frail, and Shuichi practically yanks the paperwork out of an overworked intern’s hand.

They keep saying that there's little to no chance of anything working at this point, as if Shuichi didn't watch hours of hearing Kokichi and himself talk about that already. Didn't force himself to stay up for days in the home that some other him had made with another Kokichi. Shuichi doesn't care about his free for life lawyer saying how this will require a large co-pay. He has a mountain of a bank account.

He can only pray that it works.


	2. 00

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At first he can only recognize himself doing things that horrify him only 'slightly'. Like talking about foreboding things while capturing some chain filled dungeon like area on camera.
> 
> Or... that's how the tape labeled ZERO starts at first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tape ZERO. 
> 
> Press play? 
> 
> Start.

"All guys, I think that I've finally found the perfect place!" a giddy voice says, muffled by ear the breaking sounds of a bad camera movement. For a moment the camera itself only shows blurry rock and rapidly jostled darkness.

A disturbed grumble rings out, "I can't believe I turned off the light again… all that money and my camera is stupid."

The camera feed stabilizes. Showing only what looks like a brick wall for a few more precious seconds of ignorance, light blinks on fast enough to blind. Only a half nervous giggle is produced by the seemingly alone cameraman.

(Shuichi can't say he doesn't recognize the voice. That he isn't haunted by the him that isn't him.)

It's a room that the man, the boy, is recording. A room. But there are no traces of civilized amenities to be seen. The room is like the cell of an old castle, a dungeon- albeit with clear signs of being made within the last five decades. It's dusty and obviously unused, and if the ever present sound of trains is saying something... An abandoned building. Somewhere that is certainly not meant to be visited by anyone. 

Not just a cell in the sense of its atmosphere or general style though. The camera focuses on a cot with shackles attached. There are chains strung around. There are things that say someone has-

"By found I actually mean that, w-well," a wet sound like licking lips. A breathless wheezing laugh. "I ended up making it totally perfect! Had to only eat peanut butter and jelly or Ramen for a while but- it's so great now! I can show the bathroom later too. But it's going to be great."

"It's secluded and hard to get to! There's still basic stuff like water and electricity too. Can't wait to get him in here... My apartment won't be ready in time, you know?"

The camera stops focusing on cracked plaster covered stone. Again the image jiggles in amateurish hands, heavy breathing and that warped laughter, until a familiar face becomes clear. Clearer. Brown yellow grey, wide eyes with pupils shrinking from light- a manic gaze. It fits perfectly with the grin underneath. Lips curling thin and wide as if making a daily vlog.

Familiar to anyone with a brain. 

"Oh... I guess this is my face reveal too! Right, this is Saihara Shuichi and uh. I really like Dangan Ronpa and mostly Kirigiri!" the cameraman chirps, voice wavering and Adam's apple bobbing. "There's this person that I started to see everywhere. I'm not sure if they're- if he knows that. But it seems like each time I see him... Haha! He's just so sad all the time!"

It's a deep chuckle. The kind that comes from the belly and snakes up out of the throat. Just like the camera changing angles and shifting in trembling hands.

"So why not help him be happy again, I thought. And I kept thinking about it, eheh, until I only think about him..."

Stone and carefully installed hooks in the ceiling. A metal cage in a corner. The view slowly rotates in a circle, showcasing each inch of a prison. There's even a jail cell cage wall- thing- blocking any potential inhabitants from the actual door out. 

"But I, it's not like I knew his whole name until recently but, he started looking really sick. And I found him less. Um. S-sorry," Shuichi breathes.

The camera wobbles as the person holding it sits down on a cot made for imprisonment. It creaks and makes a brightly loud noise, trains going quiet. A second of silence and a minute consisting of laughter. Mumbles that can't be understood, but there's a thoughtfulness to them- and then emotionless calculation.

"This place really isn't the best to put a stray... But I don't have a nicer place for it yet."

(The words are divorced from any previous language or tone. Almost like small talk, but colder. Shuichi grips his trousers and tries not to let himself get swept away by dread. It's like hearing a totally different person.)

“For just acclimating to a new lifestyle…”

Across from the camera is a table right out of a cheap hospital set. Or a morgue. The video once again gets disturbed by movement. But this time there's a sense of urgency in each step, a grace not there before.

A gag.

On the metal table is a ball gag and a ring gag, straps of something, there are-

"Everything is already here. All these months of saving and planning, learning how he works. All I have to do is corner him and-" the man trails off, relishing whatever twisted fantasy is lurking in his mind. "You'll have to see him too. He's so tiny and cute. If he ever came closer to here I wouldn't even need drugs... Ah, he really isn't healthy though! He shivers whenever he takes off his jackets. It's so scary to see, but that's why-"

The video goes quiet as trains begin to rush by again.

(Shuichi wants to turn off the tape but can't move a finger.)

"I'm going to take care of him. He'll love it... He's going to be so happy while I teach him to be good for me."

(He doesn't want to know more, Shuichi decides. He stares at that table. At the things. At the whip, at the knives and the one that looks like a bone cutting saw, at pliers and needles and clamps. Shuichi doesn't even understand what he's watching- not really.)

"I got those special sunlight lamps too! But it'll take a while? Still, I'm going to take such good care of my favorite real life person. It'll be just like having a pet but it's another boy! There's a lot of stuff I've learned just for him too."

The camera slowly gets places onto the table, uneven on the implements waiting there. A solemn humming dances around. Pale fingers trace over metal and leather. The trains screech outside- echoing within derelict but still used walls.

"When your pet is good, you reward it and it loves you."

"When your pet is bad you have to punish it. It sounds easy but..."

"You have to learn how to punish animals correctly! Right? It's harder than people think, so their pets start to resent them and fear them instead of respecting them," the Shuichi breathes.

Something emotionally and physically heavy seeps out, "And if the pet is already unhealthy and scared they might... Go away."

"Or run away after trying to eat you!" returns laughing cheer. "Not that he's a pet yet. That's only if he gets reaaaallly bad and I need to take his person privileges away. It's sad, but he isn't very good at certain things. I don't think he had much help with it. Ah- I'm being a bit vague again."

A hand ghosts over the camera and grabs it, pointing it back at it's owners face. His eyes stare back the same as always. An exhilarated malice pushed forward as innocent stupidity by some. But the outright leer on self bitten lips can't lie. The far away stare and deep red flash doesn't do a thing to hide deviant intent. Hunger is outright radiating from the young man. 

"Talking with him is so much fun, you guys. Otherwise I feel like a stalker these days, hhhaha, but yesterday he called me his friend. I'm his only friend too. I've checked."

"..."

"Probably... It's going too far."

"But I'm really sorry for it and yet- I don't think that I care anymore."

"I want to make him happy more than anything. So- I'm going to become his only person.”

"Tomorrow on his way home from work, he's going to be really tired."

"He's going to be hungry too, and he knows I always have a thermos! We've shared food before."

The smile shifts as eyes grow unfocused, static expression twisting while ugly iris gleam like amber, "I'm going to kidnap him and keep him with me for the rest of our lives."

(The video ends, and the Saihara Shuichi of the present feels like he should have died years ago. 

It's not new.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiii. Did you think I was finished with this? 
> 
> Even if you thought otherwise. I'm not. 
> 
> Let's play together. 
> 
> Please.


	3. Tape ONE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tape one, 01, ONE.
> 
> Start?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi watches his boyfriend open the door, neon sign above screaming BEST LOVE HOTEL, and enters. His gloves creaking around the bag containing their tripod. It's just as smoke filled as the last time, he notes. 
> 
> “ID,” says the woman making all the cancer filled pollution. Her fingers tap at the front desk, the long French manicure making uniform sounds to match a broken clock. Black hair, black eyes, slightly different combination of classy office lady and dominatrix. Same as last time…
> 
> Shuichi sighs and puts his multiple bags on a chair next to a fake plant. 
> 
> “Sara, we literally go to your workshops and munches. You're like our mentor,” Kokichi grunts with a grimace. “Why the hell do we need to show identification when you've seen our graduation pictures? I'm fucking dying. Just let me have sex before it ends up being snuff via my heart giving out.”
> 
> “K-kokichi!” Shuichi yelps, twisting around to show a truly flabbergasted expression. 
> 
> Sara rolls her eyes and flicks through a knitting magazine, “If I need to show ID then you need to show ID.”
> 
> “Your ID is actually factual now, also congrats on that… BDSM mom," he says. Just a bit genuinely. Only a little. 
> 
> “Get a more accurate picture then, darling son. But thanks. Might marry the hubby all official like.”
> 
> By the time they're going up to the room, Kokichi actually feels better. Hearing Shuichi giggle snort helps. Actually getting to start is still surreal. Knowing that Shuichi loves him enough to sit down and listen to Kokichi spew out so much, and then go through with it... 
> 
> Kokichi looks at the door to their room and smiles.

(Shuichi stares at the television screen. The black but not screen eventually asks, replay? He doesn't breathe, he doesn't think, only watches hints of static play across emptiness. Slowly, the man gets up while trying not to scream. Shuichi shudders as his hands exchange tape 00 for tape 01. He stays kneeling with his head against that uncaring glass. A retro kind of thing that he himself might enjoy. Sickening. 

What will I see if I watch this, Shuichi catches himself thinking. The man can't help but imagine that he knows. By the time he falls into the couch-)

The first thing to show up on camera is much clearer than before, joined by familiar humming. A softly manic smile looks down at the camera lense. Blinking, Saihara Shuichi glances at something out of view.

A faint squeak, like the cot from before.

"Well... I did it. I really am doing it too," the boy quietly says. Full of wonder and something intimate. "Thanks for all your tips, especially the camera stuff. And reminding that I actually bought those camera accessories too. They uh, were in my closest. Ehehe."

Shuichi swallows and keeps his eyes where they're already transfixed, the small hallway he's in filled with bright lights. He seems to almost stand multiple times, body lurching only to sink back down, eyebrows pinching. It's a strange expression on his face- ugly with something ravenous. Awash with emotion both madly affectionate and made of awe.

"I don't think I'll be able to show you guys the bathroom today. He woke up ten minutes ago. It wasn't hard. Got him ready, and now he's awake..."

(Shuichi watches that smile spread across his own face. It's from his nightmares. It's from an undeniable reality and now its status as the truth is even realer.)

The camera begins to move once again, steadier. Changing to be pointed towards a door and the source of what must be a captive jiggling chains. Each step is full of dizzying murmurs, about having fun, and the sound of trains gets louder and louder. Soon, Shuichi's pale hand reaches the door knob. It makes a small click as it turns- and a person beyond it gasps lowly.

"He- hey? Is... Is-" a weak voice calls out, unable to truly speak.

The door opens up to a dark room. Just as before, if changed due to adjustments and a different angle. Seeing from the front portrays a different kind of feeling. Going into the room after the cleaner hallway makes it clear that the room has been left in such poor conditions on purpose.

A slight blur later and the cameraman focuses on someone who looks like a young man, or even just a boy. Small and hiding his eyes from sudden bright lights. Metal chains and cloth join human whimpers, trains, and cot squeaks. A moment passes with nothing said.

"Are you… okay?" Shuichi's voice asks.

(“Don't you dare,” Shuichi seethes. Don't you dare do what I know that you will. Hands fist shirt fabric and the Detective grits teeth together.)

The light dims as the worried yet even tone carries. Breathing harshly, the boy shackled to the cot rubs thick gloved hands under thicker glasses. He shudders and sniffles, before slowly looking up with hope naked in his eyes.

"I- please help me! I was on my way home and I just. I don't know, but just call the cops," he blabbers."Are you an urban explorer or… Saihara-san? Oh thank christ and holy shit!"

“No.”

The camera feed stays on the boy, the victim. High quality recording perfectly captures both his face and silence, thus preserving the exact moment that the nameless 'he' begins to realize the truth.

A kind of bone deep change lights up through the boy's entire body. First in his already desperate gaze. His slack jaw, the heaving of his chest and tenseness of his body. Born from nothing but silence. Though, if his eyes darting back and forth say anything- the look on his kidnappers face must be just as chilling.

"Let me go. You, we've talked before and- I'm not going to say anything about this so please let me go!" rushes out a stream of fear. Condensed into words and just as raw. Hints of something breathy and wet, similar to tears.

The camera bobs slightly as the boy holding it walks forward. It's an almost smooth transition from stillness to movement. Up until Shuichi's hands place the camera on a table. For a few minutes there is only the sound of trains as a cracked wall is recorded. The young prisoner continues to try and speak. 

Nothing but rapid exhalation manages to escape.

"I'll explain in a little bit, okay? I just have to set up the tripod..."

It's a gentle, soothing, and empty kind of tone. A few seconds pass as the trains slowly vanish, replaced by the sounds of two different human beings. 

"... Please," the boy whispers.

Sobbing kicking in, "I don't understand why you did this, I don't know why I'm here I- I don't even know you!"

There's a low groan and a hiss as the camera is almost angrily placed onto the tripod, blurred images of destitute furniture clashing with new additions. Metal and ruined masonry. Again, the video itself shakes before clearing back into something pristine.

(I don't know who this is, Shuichi thinks. A shocked into emotionless factuality kind of truth. The terrified boy on the screen doesn't look like anyone he knows. Black hair cut that short, barely any length and no bangs... He looks sicker than the past Shuichi could have ever described. Like death. The Detective stares with nothingness filling up his body.)

Dull purple eyes stare up in horror, the camera's light glaring off of the boy's glasses. A sigh of frustration and Shuichi slowly walks forward- each step causing another flinch. The boy inches back with each step. Further away whenever the kidnapper gets closer to his victim. Trembling just a bit more with each second. 

"What do you mean that you don't know me? We talk all the time!" Shuichi says with pitch rising. First calm and then truly offended. His body stands just barely within the camera's line of sight, a fist clenched at his side.

The boy, pressing himself snug against the wall, clutches onto himself and grimaces. Unable to speak clearly and with glasses sliding down his nose- he stays quiet. Another sigh and Shuichi seems to let the more visible anger fade away. He moves in front of the frightened boy, captured by him, and sits down at his right; yanking a chain and smiling.

A frail body near tumbles forward with a croak. Glasses falling half off, their owner dazed and then frozen.

"Sit down properly, okay?" comes a deceptively gentle voice, lips twisted into a parody of care. Unable to or simply not caring to hide the command underneath it. "I have to explain everything... How this is going to work from now on."

(It's going to be disgusting and rancid. Shuichi can feel it within each beat if his heart, blood rushing to his skull as a cocktail of fear and rage fills him. He can't deny that this is real though. He wants to. He wants to bolt up and grab the photos and the box, break the tapes, Shuichi wants to run away. But this is the truth. But he can't move. But he owes that boy this suffering. 

So he watches.)

Pale fingers brush against paler skin. They take hold of that wobbling frame and carefully fix it, rubbing short hair and digging in- all while chains clatter. Limbs moving into place. The boy tries to steady his breathing to no avail, blinking quickly and twitching when a second hand grasps his jaw. His delicate neck turns as he's forced to face Saihara Shuichi.

But those eyes full of spiraling emotions lock onto something beyond the camera.

"My... Thermos?"

"Oh no, that's mine!" Shuichi says with sudden excitement. "I've given it to you before though. That's actually how I drugged you, but I think I gave you too much."

Yellow eyes become pleased slices, "Maybe that's why you're so confused right now... Right?"

"That's not- no. No you never did that, that never happened!" the boy suddenly protests. As if something has put new life into him. He forces his weak body to struggle. Weak, pathetic, because all he does is make his captor sway and hold on tighter with a cruel grip. The boy whimpers and even wheezes, chains taunt.

"That's my thermos. Yours is still in your bag."

"I guess it's normal for you to mistake them though. We share all the time. I even get the exact thing you do each day, from the same place at the train station, and I bought it to look identical so! Ah... Ahahehe."

"Hmmm. Could it be that you never noticed that I like to switch them?"

A loud hiccuping starts to fill the windowless room as a train roars by.

"I don't want this... Let me go home. Let me leave, I'll do anything so. Please?" the boy eventually begs, squirming and panting- if slower than before.

A leer grows steady on Shuichi's face. A grin, opening to reveal teeth white like a warning. Contrasting with a flush so slight that it could belong to an innocent school boy. Hands slowly travel and force the captive to again face the camera. Staying heavy on shoulders not nearly as wide as baggy clothing attempts to portray.

"We both know that you don't have a home..."

Deep and languid, breathy.

(Hands surge up to hide a sickened face, because Shuichi can tell- he knows that the him in this video is aroused. Hearing another round of sobs says that the boy does too.)

"But you do now! This is your new home until you can come to mine, upstairs. Okay? All that you need to do is be good and listen to me. When you earn enough from being good... I'll give you things."

"L-like the stuff in my bag?"

"Oh. I already threw away a few things that you don't need anymore. But sure. I'll use your money to buy things too," Shuichi says, eyes burning manic holes into the boy's face. "I mean that- eventually- your restraints will come off or get lengthed. And you'll be able to do things like go to bathroom when I'm not here!"

Wide eyes and dilated pupils gaze down, the boy looking at his lap as a hand begins to stroke his neck.

"I..."

"There is a little problem with something though. Just a tiny one. Ah, not the- I'll be here a lot so don't worry about getting lonely."

"Nnn-"

(Shuichi heaves and pulls at his hair, some cry ripping out of his throat as if he has that right. As if his hands have never run along the slack face of someone ill and vulnerable, captured by chains and camera alike.)

"I'm going to help you get aaaalll better," Shuichi says, lips pressing into hair dull and dry. "But you don't have a name anymore. Not until you get enough points, hhhhehe! Do you understand?"

The camera feed glitches, and when it comes back it shows one hand is pulling at already short hair. The boy's eyes just barely open as obvious pain makes him whine. But Shuichi's expression doesn't seem to be changed. Only the gleam in his eyes as he smiles, displaying his enjoyment openly, lips soon being licked.

"What... What did I do?" is the only reply that Shuichi gets.

Yellow eyes blink as Shuichi abruptly releases his victim. Trembling and falling, the boy goes limp and twitches with a groan. Despite letting go, Shuichi looks at his hand and then down to the boy on the cot as if puzzled. His smile fades away from his face in favor of what might, on someone else, look like a friendly concern.

"You didn't do anything at all."

"I'm not sure how you can't understand this... But I swear I've told you how much I care about you."

"Just a while ago you said I was your only friend too."

"I've been seeing you long enough to know that's the tru-"

The boy pushes himself to look at the other boy, though his face remains unseen due to angle and darkness.

Shuichi smiles widely at what he sees there.

"I even double checked on your phone too! You definitely told me that. And seeing that everything else matched up was great. There's really not a single other person in your life that cares, just me..." Shuichi says, swinging his legs and breaking into excited laughter.

"You... You're..." the boy tries to speak.

"Get up."

(Don't get up, Shuichi's heart whispers as if it'll stop. Get up, his brain says because it's best to comply with your kidnappers.)

Shuichi stands up and hums as the chugging of train wheels makes the room seem to shake. He turns and watches as the boy, frail and wavering, sits up to look at him with a glare. A burning in his eyes. Purple still dulled to tinted grey, but now filled with deep-seated betrayal. Chains coiling like snakes on thin sheets.

"Take your shirt off."

"What?" the boy breathes, a single exhale making him deflate into confusion. As if the order is unexpected.

A chuckle with no humor answers him, "And now, your pants too."

The boy's eyes swim around the room again. He takes in a shallow drink of air and lets his head dip down- hands grabbing at the dirty cot below him. If nothing else, the kidnapper allows his inmate a moment of silence-

"No. No I'm not going to do that," the boy hisses. "I'm not going to just do everything that you say! I'm not going to fucking strip for you, you fucking liar!"

Rushing by again, the train tracks and their near constant use blocks out any other sound. The scream melds with it. Something that could be a sob or a sigh almost registers in the recording, but only the visual of Shuichi's figure to walking closer can be seen- approaching a body quivering in palatable outrage. Clacking on gritty stone floor.

(Shuichi pauses the video. Shuichi gets up. Shuichi goes into the bathroom and kneels with his head over the rim of a dusty toilet bowl- Shuichi stares down at nothing and shakes. 

Shuichi gets up. Shuichi sits down again.)

"I can't believe that you're already being so bad..." Shuichi says, toneless and still filled with anticipation. "But- that's okay. Right? Since you just don't know any better and all. This is basically just asking for punishment."

"You really don't know how to behave like a person, yet."

Half hidden by a body, the kidnapper, what happens is still obvious. It's clear in the way the cot near screeches, the boy seeming to collapse back on it. How the sound before that rings out over the trains, marking their end. One arm and fist visible for a moment and then rushing down for a second- and a pained sound croaking as the camera completely loses sight of the boy. A slap or a hit. A punch, sudden discipline for daring to disobey. 

The cot squeaks as the person laying on it lets out a pained moan, likely moving to prevent further attacks.

"Are you okay? Going to listen this time?"

"Uh... Uhuh," the boy gasps. His breath hitches and he starts to push himself up- before a pair of hands helps him get back into seating position. Pulling at shaking limbs. Soon revealed fully to the camera once more, the boy blinks slowly. Glasses gone and a hand rubbing the left side of his face, the boy looks dazed and flushed from earlier anger.

"Good! Now get undressed."

Eyes with pupils blown up blink up, tears running down cheeks grown eerily thin. Just as thin hands shake in the air as if lost when faced with the task of clothing. Still, a hum sparks the boy into following his orders quietly. Button by button, until ragged fabric gets to haphazardly tangle with chains.

The camera perfectly captures each inch of that of colorless and emaciated body, and its owner has to realize that too. He tries to cover himself to no avail and for no reason, the state of his health just as bare as he is. Fragile illness seems to radiate from him. Even the only light source being from a camera- nothing can hide how close to death he looks. 

(Shuichi looks away from the television, as if to protect the boy's dignity. As if to avoid acknowledging that he's the person that ruined it.)

"Du- Saihara..."

"You shouldn't call me that here."

For the first time since the video started, the nameless boy's eyes actually look alive. He opens his mouth and quietly asks, "What should I- what should I call you?"

"Ehehe, well you know, it's just that I don't think a stray like you should be using any kind of casual name! Soooo... 'Sir'. I don't think you'd be very genuine about calling me Master yet. And I respect your boundaries.”

More tears leak of of those eyes, his face redder and the boy himself twitching. He almost seems to say something. 

(It's that exact same kind of mocking self-awareness that makes Shuichi fill with rage. Loathing. But this is the first tape and Shuichi has nothing to go on yet.)

"Right... That's- do I have to take off the rest?"

Nothing, and then the boy in the video flinches. Cringes and says, "S-sir."

Head ducked and eyes looking up from under, silence is again the only thing recorded. It's a slow start afterwards. Clothing inhibits movement and makes the ill teen start to breath heavily again, hands lost under fabric, but eventually he just starts to shimmy out of his pants. 

Each movement just accentuates the ability to count the boy's ribs. The prominence of his bones- the lack of both fat and muscles.

They fall against just as unhealthy ankles, shackles holding them up.

"Better. You're going to need more food than I thought though. If you're good I'll get your favorites too, but I think you might have lied to me."

"I'm... I don't lie."

"You don't look like you eat! Do you only drink soup each day? Isn't super obvious why you're here right now? That's really hurtful!" Shuichi yells, questions bursting out as footsteps fill the air again. Metal against metal follows, things getting moved around. "Trying to act like you have- Oh. The drugs. Well... I guess I'll have to be a bit gentle after all. I forgot about those, hahaha."

"Why are you holding those?" the boy asks, fragile body seizing up. 

As soon as he finishes, Shuichi comes back into view with medical scissors in hand.

(Shuichi almost shuts the video off entirely. The most gruesome murder, even if there's more than this, and he just can't. He wants it to be for the clothing. He needs it to be for the clothing.)

"You should ask me that the right way," the kidnapper chides, soon pushing the boy down and bringing the scissors up to snip snap in the air. Amused. "Use the right words like we talked about. It was pretty well decided on."

The boy groans when his arm gets held up by one hand. Otherwise, he stays still and soundless.

(Shuichi notices his leg twitch, what might be hips squirming, and tries not to imagine what would happen if the boy kicks.)

"Sir, w-what are," the murmurs. His voice is low, wet from tears, growing hoarse from strain. "What's going to happen? I can't see right now so..."

The camera feed glitches again.

Somewhat straddling the boy, Shuichi giggles with his scissors cutting away at cheap cloth as he slowly his hips grinds down. Each little snap is accompanied by a shuddering gasp. Once cut, fabric is easily ripped away and left to flutter on the floor like trash. The sound of that cot squealing and something like a series of grunts joins with the rest. Until finally, after minutes of scissors tearing into thin materials, Shuichi stills. 

“You're so beautiful right now. So good for me.”

"That's... Wrong," the boy says.

A laugh and the motion of what is clearly Shuichi running his hands down the boy's body. But it doesn't last very long, the kidnapper giving one last caress before he springs up and off of the cot. His face is different from before- a soft pink and a smile made of adoration. Speaking, which remains like a prettily decorated barbed wire fence, "You don't get to decide what's wrong anymore. Sit up."

This time, the boy obeys almost immediately. He looks woozy and lost while watching Shuichi quickly dispose of the strips on the floor, all that remains of his clothing.

"Good! Now lean back and spread your legs."

(Shuichi flinches, half expecting this but still relieved that the scissors were only for the clothing after all. His eyes linger on tattered cloth hanging around thick shackles. Maybe... Maybe it's not that. It can't be that. But everything points towards it being that.)

The boy groans and covers his eyes with both hands. Tiny fingers rub and rub, as if it will magically reset everything.

"Do you want me to punish you, again?" Shuichi asks, sly. He walks back into the view of the camera with a fold out chair in hand. It opens with a screech. "I can do that. Maybe somewhere other than your face."

"Can I know why?" the boy whispers.

"..."

"M-may I know why, Sir?" he tries again. Those hands falling from his tear stained face- red and one side slowly swelling. A frightened thinning of already thin lips. Legs clamped together.

"I told you that your pants need to come off. You didn't take the underwear off too, so now I'm going to help you," Shuichi carefully explains, waving around his scissors. Smirking in profile. The camera perfectly recording his enjoyment. Just leaning closer makes the boy bolt backwards with wide eyes.

“You want it to be easy, right? Taking care of you by helping you wash up will be much easier this way.”

“Stay still.”

Getting back on the bed and smoothly wrapping around the side, Shuichi roughly forces the boy to sit on his lap before slumping forward. Nose in hair and rolling hips up against a still clothed bottom. 

Shuichi's already hidden face soon dips down towards his captive's neck,and he starts licking a stripe of saliva from boney shoulder to pink ear. The boy squeaks and jerks pointlessly. His chains won't let him get away anymore than the weakness of his body will provide strength, freedom unattainable. Still, he shivers and watches scissors trail down from sternum to overly prominent hip bones.

Scissors slowly open, twin edges gleaming in the light. They match the reflection in dull eyes that stare ahead, half closed, somewhere else. The boy stays almost unnaturally still. Even when metal carefully tucks itself under navy blue cloth.

The elastic band snaps when cut. The sound makes the boy gasp back into awareness, eyes wide and chest heaving with each breath. More snips and moving metal continue until one leg is completely free from clothing. 

“Don't look,” the boy murmurs. Like a half hearted plea. 

Shuichi just chuckles, “I'm pretty sure that I already know though.”

A whine, those eyes staring straight into the camera, and the front of those boxers is slowly pulled away. Sexual fluids making the thing sticky and wet. His barely hard cock twitching from at sudden freedom. The boy's otherwise limp legs twitch as well, chains rattling. 

“Yeah… you nearly came.”

Short and said with nothing less than complete awe. 

“I'm-”

“Shhhh, it's okay,” accompanies the sound of more cloth being removed via scissors. “All you have to do is follow the instructions given to you. So that I can help you. I'm in love with you after all, understand?”

“Nnno! No I'm not,” the boy tries to say, only for kisses to assault his neck. 

One, with nips and panting. Saliva and teeth scraping against skin, three. More and more until the boy's neck is a mess of red and indentation. Ten, and a bite makes the boy sob as his body arches taunt. Yet another long lick that leads to teeth nibbling at an ear. Throughout it all a flush of humiliation and a pair of hazy eyes. 

“You haven't been talking to me the way that you should… “

Whimpering that might be words. A hand traveling down to a soaked cock. 

“S-s- uuuu?! Sir! Please, sir? I'm sorry sir just don't touch me like this. Please wait!”

(The rest of the world fades away as the video nears its conclusion. Shuichi is just as unable to avoid the screen as ever. With wireless headphones in, he can't mute it either. Instead, he watches and listens to his past self full reveal his, their, horrific truth.

The only thoughts in his mind; what happened to the boy? Where is he now? 

What is he now, Shuichi's brain whispers as his eyes send the visual of cum spurting. All over himself. The boy- Shuichi's victim. No… no, not him it's not he can't he-) 

“I'll be generous with you.”

Hands run down trembling thighs. 

“Three total escape attempts before I cut these off of you. Stuff like that. The first time I'll just put you in the cage.”

“I'm a good owner, after all.”

(Tape ONE, REPLAY?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi opens his eyes, wrapped in a pale yellow blanket. Before him is a cup of hot tea on a coffee table. He shifts as another body scoops him up and settles around him. A hand checks the hot water bottle cradled against him. 
> 
> “What...tea?”
> 
> His boyfriend smiles and presses a kiss again his forehead, “Chamomile and lavender. Drink it.”
> 
> The beverage is hot, but comfortable, and it sinks into him like a drop of melting. Kokichi sips just a little bit more as the taste of crackers slowly vanishes. He snuggles into Shuichi's body heat and wonders how long it can all last. 
> 
> “Thank you. I mean it- you must have had it rough. Seeing me like that,” Kokichi mutters. “I'll take care of the recording. All of this is on me, so I'll. Yeah.”
> 
> His hair and head get tucked under Shuichi's chin, their breathing and shuddering twisting together, that soft voice humming away pre-recorded trains.
> 
> “You aren't going to be alone. Ever,” the boy holding him eventually says. “And you're only the main scenario writer. I helped too, because I love you.”
> 
> Kokichi swallows down another sip of tea. He tries not to say ‘but you'll be alone soon’. Somehow, he succeeds. Shuichi holds him, mothers him, kisses him and smooths down the subdrop waiting to happen. Gives warmth to tired bones. 
> 
> “Don't you think that it's too much?” he murmurs back. Don't you think I'm horrible and disgusting, he wonders.
> 
> Shuichi presses their hands together, “No. Do you want your gloves back yet? Your hands...”
> 
> If Kokichi starts to cry after that, well, no one is around to tell him to stop. If the feeling of it all is too much-loved, no one is here to sneer at him.
> 
> The two young men fall asleep curled into one another, peaceful and drained all at once.

**Author's Note:**

> If you read this fic then you are agreeing that you have read all of my warnings. 
> 
> I sometimes feel vaguely meh that everyone always writes extremely soft BDSM. The feeling always seems to be that further in stuff is forever locked up by disgust as trendy light bondage and spanking gets placed on a pedestal. There is of course no right way to kink. But it stings when people just happily have a giggle or two about sexy blindfolds and then ghost from chat when you go towards the middle. 
> 
> So I wrote something with plenty of stuff that I've ever felt was horrible or at least questionable to want done or to want to do irl. It is the closest I will ever get to writing non consensual sex. It was somewhat therapeutic for personal reasons beyond liking BDSM. I will now give graphic examples. 
> 
> Whipping and cutting enough to bleed, violent beating, threat of burning skin with a cigarette. Making someone beg to be harmed. Keeping someone shackled long enough to perhaps cause permanent harm. The logically irrational assumptions that a reprogrammed amnesiac would make. Shuichi's first thoughts are that he used to be a rapist. 
> 
> And then there's the fact that basically no one writes safewords actually getting used. There aren't many fics that explore how bad you can feel when you start figuring out what you like. When you find a shit ton of things on sadists that rape and murder while trying to look things up. How little there is on Doms using safewords. How much shit you'll find, that you still can't understand why others would be willing to actually allow outside of fantasy. 
> 
> So at some point I started to think about it. And it became a short and extremely vaguely worded au idea while basically deciding to lie about making into a multi chapter fic someday. 
> 
> Shuichi finding homemade bdsm sex tapes, and not at all knowing what bdsm is. This and everything else about his situation makes him assume that his pregame self is a horrible rapist. Why? Because this is what most people who accidently find hardcore bdsm often assume. 
> 
> And, I want to see safewords being used. I want to see someone finding their limits the hard way. I need to see something other than perfect bdsm machines that never fuck up or have uncomfortable moments where nothing is sparkling.
> 
> I wanted to see something tragic and depressing after reading a lot of happy and canon ignoring fics, smut or not. 
> 
> So I made it myself. 
> 
> We as people can never know what others are really thinking. I hard bake that into each fic that I write. Here, Shuichi has no way of knowing that these tapes were consensual scenes between two people that loved one another. So he doesn't. So bad things happen because real life isn't fair, and your stubbornness will hurt you. Humans do not read minds. 
> 
> Whether Kokichi lived or not is, for now, up to the reader.


End file.
